Love yourself and your life before you can love and be happy w/another.

jah1847jah1847
in General

We hear the title of this thread all the time, don't we? I would guess it is so widely accepted that any argument in opposition to this "truth" would be resoundingly dismissed. That said, I don't believe that this idea fits me at all, and would like to hear what others think.

Quick backstory: I am someone who grew up in a toxic family, with an abusive mother and an alcoholic father. One of the main characteristics I developed through that is an incredibly low self-esteem and perpetual criticism of myself. That said, I have spent the last 9 years alone, trying to find that magical happy place, and you know what I found?

I get no satisfaction or meaning from living a life alone!

I genuinely love helping and caring for another person. That's where I find the most value in my life, where I find the most happiness and excitement for tomorrow. I used to believe the phycologist explanation that this was because of my constantly trying to get my family to care about me, which manifested itself into seeking other's approval.

Yet here I am, 9 years alone, not seeking approval or trying to drown my short-comings into another person, and low and behold, I still only want to have a special person who I can care for and love with everything I have in me. Making a fortune, climbing the social or corporate ladder, or making a name for myself in society have zero importance for me. I still just want to care about someone who has a meaningful place in my life, despite not caring about myself much at all.

So, I guess I'm asking for opinions on this. Am I completely incapable of loving another until I learn to like myself? Or can I care deeply for others, regardless of my own feelings about the person I am?

Comments

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod
    edited February 2025

    This notion that you must love yourself as a precondition for being loved is a nasty, vicious, horrible belief. It is completely false, and spread out of malice by malicious people in order to bring more misery into the world.

    If you know anybody who holds it seriously 🚩🚩🚩 get them out of your life immediately if you can. (Throwaway comments by otherwise nice folk just being a bit thoughtless can be corrected or ignored.)

    Am I completely incapable of loving another until I learn to like myself?

    No. This is a revolting lie spread by Bad People because they get a kick out of making others unhappy.

    The truth is that caring for others is a wonderful and valuable thing in itself. I have a hazy recollection that this was mentioned by a fellow called Jesus, who my dad used to bang on about sometimes.

  • HuggycatbearHuggycatbear
    edited February 2025

    I believe it is true. But this deserves nuance.

    First of all, I used to think loving yourself was some sort of switch you had to find in yourself and turn on. But it is a journey. And like other things, actions speak louder than words. Everything is an inner expression which we learn to project outside. So finding our own individual expression on how we love ourselves becomes a whole lot of shining the light within to discover how we want to be loved.

    For example: you and I can be big givers. We can constantly open our heart and invest in others. But that can lead to being taken advantage of. And then we see the uglyness in others. And use their eyes to judge us. Make us feel ugly ourselves. Or not worthy of love through their actions. Especially when it becomes a pattern that constantly repeats.

    Learning to recieve doesn't come easy for me, but it becomes necessary to make that connection for love. It's a two-way street. How you want to be loved is the same as standing up for yourself, reminding yourself of your value, so you can be treated like so. And only you can grow to understand that value at first.

    I've been right where you are @jah1847

    I'm so sorry for the abuse you've gone through with your family. I also had an alcoholic father.

    One of the main parts is finding your own value and worth, so you can attract someone else of integrity. If you are needy and dependent of others to fill that void, you will attract someone who doesn't have the capacity to love in a fulfilling way.

  • SerenityMomentsSerenityMoments

    @Huggycatbear couldn't have said it better myself. I just wanted to add. Loving yourself does not mean enabling yourself. Loving oneself also means holding oneself accountable, showing up for oneself even on the days they don't feel like it (and that can look different everytime), discipline, being grateful and showing gratitude, being kind to oneself especially when those negative self image thoughts rise, seeing oneself completely flaws and all and not being afraid to look at the flaws because nobody is perfect, being open te receive. It is hard work especially when one is conditioned to always do the opposite. But loving yourself is definitely going to help weed through the people that you attract in your life and make sure you choose the ones that will match what you are giving and recognize and let go of the ones that won't or atleast keep them at a healthy distance if you can't fully let them go.

  • HuggycatbearHuggycatbear

    @SerenityMoments Love that you added the accountability part. You're right, loving ourselves is also showing up on our days and in moments we are not doing good and can't be 100 or even 50%. That expression of love can be very different on those days.

  • [Deleted User]gem7 (deleted user)

    Though it probably leads to you being healthier and happier it is absolutely not essential to love yourself in order to love others.

  • frankparker9frankparker9

    If we weren’t seen and loved the way we needed as a kid, we are going to be searching for that as an adult. Also to give the love we have to give; to be and give the gift that we are; to feel secure in our place in a group; and all of that. That requires relationships of some sort. We need reference points for being truly loved and loving another, examples of how to love ourselves, because that was supposed to be modeled for us.

    Finding a person to be your “love object” is just one aspect of a relationship, though, and to have a healthy relationship with another human being, where you are loved and treated well yourself, and you both have agency and boundaries, can represent your respective feelings and needs in conversations and conflicts, and so on, requires working on your self-love. There’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg or bootstrapping problem when it comes to love and relationships, because you need relationships to work on love and self-love, and vice versa.

    It’s not that you need to love yourself before loving someone else, or partnering with someone else in some way. It’s more like, if you can’t treat yourself well and feel good about it, it’s going to throw a monkey-wrench in finding someone who treats you well, and treating them well. Loving someone and treating them well are two very different things! People are often a much more toxic version of themselves in love. They replay and reenact their attachment trauma.

    I still just want to care about someone who has a meaningful place in my life

    The thing is—and this may suck to hear—making yourself the person you care about and give a meaningful place in your life, in just the way you are saying, turns out to be what feeds the soul, satisfies the craving and the longing, and brings contentment and peace. Sometimes I wish it weren’t so. Loving yourself can feel weird, and doing it when no one else did (even your own mother or father, what a head trip) can be sad. Honestly, I can’t imagine going straight to this conclusion when one doesn’t have a lot of relationship experience. You need to experience a major relationship, I think, with all the highs and lows. Get to the point where you are trying so hard, and the relationship is kind of awful, but you stay because you love each other (you think, or at least you feel very attached), and you just can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong. You want to be happy.

    Sometimes people discover self-love after exhausting all other options.

  • [Deleted User]CharlesGrove (deleted user)

    At some point loving yourself is very similar to being tired of everyone else’s poop.

    And even your own poop.

    As they say, if you love something, let it go.

    If it returns to you it probably had a self addressed stamped envelope.

  • HuggycatbearHuggycatbear

    @CharlesGrove I really want to work on this letting people go. And they will either come back or not. Either way it's a win-win for finding the right or wrong person to keep connections with.

  • [Deleted User]CharlesGrove (deleted user)

    @Huggycatbear Its solitary, but the good ones make it worth the patience, and honestly, I prefer solitude to paper cuts.

    Begging someone to like me, or folding/spindling/twisting myself so that maybe they will like me, feels like death by paper cuts.

    I am not sure that I love myself, but I am certain that I prefer my own company enough to not fuss too much about being liked by others.

  • HuggycatbearHuggycatbear

    I prefer solitude to paper cuts

    @CharlesGrove

    Omg I'm going to remember that one. I've gotten so many papercuts for trying, leaving myself drained, exhausted and not myself for weeks.

    Tired of the lessons from pain.

    Trying to get where I learn from my good decisions instead of bad ones, even if pain grows me so much faster.

  • lilithgrowlithelilithgrowlithe

    I hate that old saying! People that have stories that left marks on them are more capable of loving others than anyone I've ever known. The self hatred doesn't matter when you would give the world for your loves one. The strongest, safest arms are full of scars. Self-love is important yes, you should always be working on healing and accepting yourself but that in no way shape or form means you can't love other people. "I love you more than my own life" but they mean it.

  • IronicMaidenIronicMaiden

    @lilithgrowlithe That's well said. I've seen that in several forms before, but no matter how it's phrased, it remains true.

    It reminds me of something I learned from Doctor Who. "If you are wounded, look for someone with scars."

  • jah1847jah1847

    @lilithgrowlithe this is my sentiments as well. I have no doubt, with everything I have been through, that somebody willing to invest in me in return will receive the most real love and appreciation that a person can give. I know all too well how rare kindness, appreciation and commitment are, and I will cherish anyone who is willing to give that to me! :)

    @frankparker9 I think you answered my question though ... the broad general statement of "you have to love yourself before you can love another" likely includes all of the important points you made. Because of my history, I know how much I struggle with setting boundaries and have fallen prey to narcissists because of that. I really do agree with everything you said, I just think we should put you in charge of renaming that classic relationship trope of loving yourself first, to something that better describes your points. Maybe something like, "you can't make a home with someone if you are the doormat outside". :)

  • graceangelgraceangel

    Finding a person to be your “love object” is just one aspect of a relationship, though, and to have a healthy relationship with another human being, where you are loved and treated well yourself, and you both have agency and boundaries, can represent your respective feelings and needs in conversations and conflicts, and so on, requires working on your self-love. There’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg or bootstrapping problem when it comes to love and relationships, because you need relationships to work on love and self-love, and vice versa.

    @frankparker9
    so i have bpd. i participate in bpd areas over on quora. we often call this our "favorite person". not everyone who has bpd has favorite people, but so many of us do. it's a huge thing. for some of us, they act as an anchor who helps us properly cycle through things and less subject to be carried away by "storms" we experience when our emotional dysfunction is really in an uptick.

  • graceangelgraceangel

    @Huggycatbear I've been working on practicing letting people go myself. I find the more I do this; I'm really helping myself overcome the fear of abandonment component of bpd. maybe i'll heal away from that disorder into some other mental health category; but it's been really empowering.

    I also get into a lot of esoteric spiritualism. letting go is a huge dynamic to bring people or other manifestations back around.
    It's kind of like that 38 special; hold on loosely but don't let go sometimes. but also. letting go is an act of love as well. I've been practicing it mentally as surrendering them or that connection to the universe; that way only what's meant for me or people who will stick around are people i hold onto to.

    Sometimes it's still difficult if i wait too long. Or maybe care too much.

  • graceangelgraceangel

    This is one of those kinds of topics that resonate with me a lot since I have bpd. What was interesting to me was that i used to think i did love myself and think well of myself. Yet. i have some strange draw for narcissistic people. like.. i mean i know they like everyone and anyone who can be supplies. but like the rate at which all the significant people of my life have been.. and many of them i knew i was being emotionally abused.. and yet.. i stayed because i thought i needed to save someone... or... idk. they say that really in these situations; we're attempting to relive situations from childhood where we weren't being loved or cared for right; we seek that this person will show up where our caregivers didn't.

    i did figure well if the common denominator in all of my relationships is me; then i must still have my own wounding to deal with which was when i found out about hte bpd tbh. it took me having like multiple mental breakdowns all right after each other to really have those breakthroughs.

    Now, I'm in recovery and spend a lot of time doing shadow work. I work on healing myself. All the time I'm looking at everything that happens and overanalyzing for how i can continue to fix myself.
    i see what you're saying. lots of ppl in the forums on quora like to say that people with this disorder don't know how to truly feel or experience love. I like to think that just because we experience it differently; does that mean we dont' at all?

    I Mean.. my son's autistic and experiences a lot of life differently due to his neurodiversity. maybe some of us just.. experience love differently.

    also, there are love languages. one of them is acts of service. Maybe if you prefer to do for others; acts of service is probably your love language. if you tell future partners; this can help them to also give you in a love you can receive it as well.

  • graceangelgraceangel

    @CharlesGrove omg. death by papercuts. that kind of feels like exactly how it can feel sometimes too. geez.

    I know i posted a bunch already but also i feel like... for all the work i've done on myself. i still struggle to be able to feel loved and accepted by anyone. not just romance but literally just anyone. it often gives me feelings of paranoia and distrust. kind of like always waiting for the other shoe to drop in anything that feels nice to start with.

    I think that's something I've hoped to lessen by interact with people through cuddling situations instead of just pursuing dating. I'm pretty sensitive for traditional dating. The cuddling lets me get some interaction without feeling like i'm just further reaffirming my mental illnesses.

  • dennis22554dennis22554

    Grace

    .For what's worth..your post is beautiful ..
    .and heartfelt It takes a lot of self share as you have and I completely agree with your key points!

  • lovingspoonfulllovingspoonfull

    I think @CuddleDuncan nailed the response to this thread. There are a lot of harmful messages that get propagated and need debunking. This is one. If you like to read, here is an article that does a fair job of tackling some of the basic presuppositions that support that kind of thinking.

    Anyone struggling with this kind of thought should seek help though. Someone close to me was a crisis counselor and she saw this issue frequently. these sorts of thoughts are damaging.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-angry-therapist/201802/you-have-love-yourself-you-can-love-someone-else

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